


Safety Net

by cobweb_diamond



Series: Paperwork [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobweb_diamond/pseuds/cobweb_diamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whenever the idea of digesting another 40-page breakdown of rift-energy surges seems too much to bear, he just has to glance up to see Clint flinging himself through the air at some improbable velocity."</p>
<p>Clint and Coulson go to the gym.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety Net

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in the same 'verse as Paperwork, but isn't intended to be a direct sequel. 
> 
> Thank you to sirona_gs for beta-ing this for me! :)

‘Sorry, man,’ Clint is saying. ‘I’m kinda busy at the moment. No prob.’ He hangs up and hands the phone to Phil, who carefully places it on the seat beside him so he’ll notice if anyone else calls. ‘Bruce,’ Clint explains. ‘He wanted me to help him and Tony test out some new robot spider thing Tony’s been working on.’

‘And there you have the reason why I delegate all the Mansion tasks to Darcy,’ says Phil.

Clint grins at him, pulling his hoodie over his head and dropping it down next to Clint’s jacket. ‘Don’t front -- you think the idea of a robot spider is totally awesome. You know, I bet they’d let you play as well if you asked nicely.’

Phil pats his iPad. ‘No, I’m good here,’ he says, as if there had ever been any chance of him deciding to leave.

Clint shrugs and rubs some chalk onto his hands. ‘OK, you know the drill,’ he says, and wanders off to do some stretches.

The goal for this evening is for Phil to have closed at least fifteen tabs by the time Clint’s done with his workout. They’ve been doing this for years, now. The fitness suite at SHIELD HQ is state-of-the-art, but it’s not exactly set up for gymnastics and Clint isn’t suited to spending hours on a cross-trainer with no distractions.

Back when Phil had first become his handler he'd shown up at Clint's training sessions for professional purposes. His continued presence mostly down to habit, plus the less time Phil spends in his own office the less time he'll spend being harangued by overzealous junior agents looking to work with the Avengers Initiative.

Phil’s job requires an unavoidable amount of dull email-writing and report-reviewing, and it’s far more bearable to do it here than in his airless and barely-used office back at HQ. Whenever the idea of digesting another 40-page breakdown of rift-energy surges seems too much to bear, he just has to glance up to see Clint flinging himself through the air at some improbable velocity. It’s a great stress-buster. Phil’s always been more of a multi-tasker so it actually helps him concentrate if he's peripherally aware of Clint doing his flexibility exercises in the background, throwing up little puffs of chalk dust whenever his hands hit the bars.

Fifteen tabs down, it turns out, is an unattainable goal for today. He and Pepper Potts have reached an impasse with regards to all the patents Stark is filing on purportedly SHIELD-owned products, and in the end Phil just forwards the whole exchange to Stillson and leans back against the wall to watch Clint climb up a very long rope using only his hands. After five years, Phil knows all his moves. He’s probably the world expert in Clint Barton, up to and including all the flashy circus tricks that are unlikely to ever come in useful during their day job.

There's something far more personal about the sense of responsibility one feels as the handler to a single field-agent compared to the more nebulous role Phil performs today, and Clint was by far the most stress-inducing person he was ever partnered with. With moves learnt in a circus and hand-to-hand skills that came directly from a string of juvenile detention facilities, Clint was never going to be a textbook agent. Phil had spent the first six months of their partnership yelling at him for a range of non-criminal acts of idiocy, from starting bar-fights with undercover ATF agents to breaking out onto the roof of every motel they ever stayed in to almost getting arrested for giving candy to an eight-year-old who “looked kinda sad” while they were waiting in line at KFC. Nowadays there’s something immensely comforting about the fact that after years of watching Clint throw himself from high places and bend into unlikely shapes, Phil can almost always predict his next move. Plus Phil appreciates the (literal) safety net here.

Phil is jerked out of his doze by a sharp wolf-whistle from the rafters. Clint is perched on the bar that secures the longest trapeze ropes and ladders, high enough that Phil can barely make out his expression. He waves cheerily down at Phil and there’s a moment where he hangs in that suspended pre-gravity state before he plummets down and Phil experiences the familiar sensation of Barton-related cardiac arrest.

Clint’s rapid descent towards the ground is halted as he catches one rope and then another, swinging like Tarzan until he’s flipping over the edge of the safety net to land a few feet away from where Phil is sitting. Reining in the desire to give him an undignified smack around the head, Phil takes a deep breath and schools his face into an expression of disapproval.

‘Don’t do that without a safety net.’

‘You mean like, don’t jump around at dangerous heights like I do almost every day when I’m doing my job?’ asks Clint politely. He grabs his hoodie from the chair beside Phil’s and uses it to towel off his face and neck. ‘Yeah, I’ll get right on that.’

Phil hands him his water bottle and they shut off the lights on their way out. In the old days Clint had just shared the gym with whoever was there already, but now he’s an Avenger SHIELD has to hire the building and lock it down for security purposes whenever they’re visiting. It’s more an autograph-hunter issue than anything else; Clint is by far the worst person in the team when it comes to members of the public who just _really want a hug_.

Driving back to the Mansion, it’s Phil’s turn to pick the music. Clint assembles and disassembles a long chain of paper clips he found in the glove compartment. Inside the dark, enclosed space of the car it almost feels like they’re on one of their old field missions, one of those times when Phil offered to drive because Clint couldn’t sleep with one of the other agents in the car.

‘Hey, come on,’ says Clint, when JARVIS opens the garage door for them. ‘Stop acting like you’re dropping me off at kindergarten and come upstairs.’

‘Yes, I have it on good authority that Stark has a new killer-robot that he wants us to meet,’ says Phil drily, but he follows Clint to the idiotic wraparound-glass elevator and up into Stark’s ego-trip of a house.

Bruce and Tony are in the workshop, playing with something that looks like it was made out of wire coat-hangers and old pieces of the Iron Man armour. The place is even more of a mess than usual. 

‘We’re trying to teach it to use kitchen utensils,’ explains Bruce.

Clint smirks, dumping his gym bag on one of Tony’s work-surfaces. ‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ says Tony.

‘Ah, the Stark family motto,’ says Phil.

‘Hey, don’t knock it.’ Tony tosses a pen at the robot, which attempts to fend it off with one spindly forearm and then falls over. Clint, who has a tendency to anthropomorphise these things, bites back a wince. ‘Is there a message from Fury or something? SHIELD can’t have this baby yet, she’s not ready.’

‘I’ll make sure to pass that along,’ says Phil, watching as Bruce attempts to stand the robot up on its own legs again. ‘Try not to blow anything up,’ he adds, and nods to Clint on his way out.

Just before the workshop door swings shut, Phil hears Tony say, ‘Wait, so the thing you were busy with was _date night_?’

‘Screw you,’ Clint answers, with considerably more vehemence than Phil would’ve expected, but by then the door has sealed and he can’t hear the rest of the conversation. For a second he thinks, _Clint’s dating?_ with a sense of surprise that’s mostly to do with the fact that Tony apparently knew about this before Phil did, but then he realises that they were talking about _him_ and he’s suddenly very glad that he didn’t have to see the face that accompanied “Screw you”.

Clint, with his oddly egalitarian streak of cynicism, has never shown any outward signs of the kind of frat boy bigotry exhibited by many of the field agents Phil works with, but -- No. Pursuing this train of thought is never going to provide any decent answers. He’s an adult -- they’re _both_ adults -- and there’s no point in drawing any conclusions until he has more information. Phil breathes through his nose and makes a conscious effort not to look back through the glass wall of Stark's workshop as the elevator doors ping open. 

‘JARVIS,’ he says out loud to the inside of the elevator, and then pauses.

‘Yes, Agent Coulson?’

In the past, JARVIS has exhibited some signs of warmth -- if one could call it that -- towards Phil, as long as Phil’s wishes didn’t betray Stark’s own directives. Maybe now... 

Phil fiddles with his cufflinks; a rare moment of uncertainty. ‘Never mind,’ he says, at last.

He leaves the SHIELD car in Stark’s underground parking lot alongside the Lamborghinis and the old-school T-Birds, and takes the subway home.


End file.
